Astronauts and cosmonauts from Russia and the US had a fuss-free journey to the International Space Station, where they have just arrived for a five-and-a-half-month stint working and living on the hurtling lab.
Oleg Kotov, Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy took just under six hours from lift-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in …

COMMENTS

Bit of a traffic jam

After making a fix on the software, Cygnus' controllers were asked to delay the next attempt to dock up until after the Soyuz docking had taken place. If they hadn't both of the vehicles would have arrived at the station about the same time.

Why an unlit torch? Putin can teach geese to fly and wrestle bears all while discovering priceless archaeological artefacts, surely he could have thumbed his nose at physics and chemistry and invented a torch that would burn in space?

Yes, but...

Assuming it's a gas torch like the UK ones were, the exhaust will be blown away by the fresh fuel although this would still make for inferior combustion in an enclosed space.

In space you'd just need an oxygen source to go with it and the momentum of the gasses coming out of the nozzles, combined with the near absence of owt to stop it (unless the cosmonaut decides to peer down it to see if it's lit...) would carry the burning gasses and exhaust away. The hard bit would be maintaining the region of combustion at a high enough temperature and pressure to keep it lit. Maybe an open topped glass enclosure to contain the gasses for long enough to burn them, like a hurricane lamp, would do it.

Flaming in space

Difficult though it may be, the Russians did manage to set their Mir space station alight using Solid Fuel Oxygen Generators (SFOG). The fire lasted 90 seconds according to official sources at the TsUP (pronounced 'titsup'?); astronaut Jerry Linenger, however, insists the fire burned for around 14 minutes.

Re: The short journey is due to the upgreded flight computer

Another reason is the retirement of the shuttle. Because the shuttle no longer needs to visit the ISS, the entire station has been boosted to a higher orbit. The transfer used now was not possible with the lower orbit.